Being the new student is hard. Since I have moved a couple of times, I have had to go to new schools where I did not know a single person multiple times.
I think that when you just come from another school that is very similar and not too far away, it is not too bad. I am always very nervous and anxious for the first week or so, but then it gets better very fast. What is really important (I think) is to be yourself. If you are a shy introverted person, do not pretend to be the life of every party. You will not be able to keep that facade up for a long time. It might work for a couple of weeks, but then it is too hard to pretend. I have previously done that, but always realized that it does not work very well. People will like you just the way you are. Maybe not everyone, but some people are enough.
Changing schools is a lot harder if you have moved to another country or change between public and private schools. You do not really speak the language, you do not know how the whole school system really works and if you go to a public school after going to a private school everyone thinks you are very rich and look at you as “the private school girl (or boy)” or the other way round. I feel like, the more different the schools are, the longer it takes until you are accepted into a class. So don’t worry if you do not have any friends after a week! It is going to get better. When I first moved to Switzerland, I went to a private school. Even though I did not have a lot of problems with the language (everyone spoke high German (the German you speak in Germany) or English, I had a lot of trouble finding new friends. It took more that a week until people even started talking to me. Whatever happens, do not change your personality and your ideals. For example I do not drink or smoke. At the school I went to however everyone was drinking and smoking. I did not agree with that so I still did not drink anything. This probably made finding friends even harder, but now I am very happy I stayed true to myself.
After half a year in private school, I decided to change to public school. I still had not found very close friends and I did not like that the curriculum was very easy. That change was probably even harder though. Everyone at public school speaks Swiss German which is quite different from normal German. I had difficulties understanding what they said and even now (after 2 years in public school) cannot speak it. Also everyone thought I was one of those dumb, rich girls that went to the private school I went to. The students there were nicer and more open, but for a very long time people still said things like “you have enough money anyway” and stuff like that. That really annoyed me, but it got better. If other students say things like that and they annoy you, just tell them. Kindly ask them to stop, because it hurts you. And after a long while the comments got less and less, and now I am quite happy at public school. So I know I do not really have a lot of advice I can give you, but just hang in there. It is going to get better.
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